So for the second time in the past two weeks, degan has had hives all over. Luckily both times I have caught them soon enough for benadryl and a cool bath to fix them, but I'm really wondering what the cause of them could be...

Can fleas cause hives if the dog is allergic? It seems more than just coincidence, ya know?

~Brittany, Degan and Harlow's mom

"It is true that Pit Bulls grab and hold on. But what they most often grab and refuse to let go of is your heart, not your arm."

I've never seen a dog with a flea bite reaction get actual hives. Usually they get small bumps and get itchy, not actual huge hives.*edit*I take that back. Malli says in the other flea thread that Oscar got hives from flea bites so I guess it's possible. I have never personally seen it but there ya go!

It's hard to say, is it possible he could have gotten stung by something? Have you put anything weird on your grass? Can you think of anything similar that he did the last time he got hives vs. this time? Something weird in the pool maybe? New shampoo?

Well I spoke too soon. We ended up at the ER vet. Luckily he sent us home with a prednisone rx so if it happens again we won't have to go to the vet. He said more than Likely it's something that he ate--probably a bug or something, and probably isn't anything environmental because it hasn't been a consistent agitation. He did say that it's not anaphylaxis, but just an allergic reaction, and that unless the steroids don't help, I don't need to panic.

Ugh. These dogs are trying to give me a heart attack I swear.

~Brittany, Degan and Harlow's mom

"It is true that Pit Bulls grab and hold on. But what they most often grab and refuse to let go of is your heart, not your arm."

Patch had a severe breakout/rash last week. His whole body looked and felt like a golf ball from being so bumpy and swollen... And he was only breaking out every 12 hours and for about an hour to two at a time. Went to the vet Wednesday and Thursday both and spent almost $300 and we still don't know what it was. They originally thought it was a reaction to bug bites or something... They put him on an antihistimene(sp) and that didn't help since he had two more break outs...

I took him back on Thursday and they decided to do a skin scraping and blood work to see how his white blood cells were doing. Everything came back negative and clean. So they put him on Prednisone and doxycycline and they STILL don't know what was wrong. He hasn't had it happen for a week now.

He had no bites, no food changes, no changes what-so-ever... His vet said she's never seen a dog break out as bad as he did and for as little time, but every 12 hours. In total he had four break outs. One Tuesday night, Wednesday morning, Wednesday night and Thursday morning. She said we may never know what it was that caused it.

yep. I believe that Oscar's hives were a severe flea allergy that has developed.

I had quite a bit of difficulty getting them to go away and stay away, almost gave us a trip to the vet, and since we already had Pred on hand, our visit would have been more extended.

We went over everything in our heads, and this was the only "different" thing we could come up with.

It sucked

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day, tomorrow doesn't look good either.
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"You didn't know of the magical powers of the break stick? It's up there with genies and Harry Potter as far as magic levels go." SisMorphine 01/07/07

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day, tomorrow doesn't look good either.
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"You didn't know of the magical powers of the break stick? It's up there with genies and Harry Potter as far as magic levels go." SisMorphine 01/07/07